If five years is an unwisely long time for a person to skip a proper checkup, it is an eternity for a $40 trillion banking sector displaying many signs of ill health.
如果说五年不体检对于一个人来说过于漫长，是不明智的，那么对于显露出许多健康欠佳的迹象，规模40万亿美元的欧洲银行业来说，五年就仿佛一万年那么长。
The results on Sunday of tests that aim to determine if Europe's banks can survive a crisis came roughly half a decade after the United States forced its banks to undergo similarly thorough tests. Earlier European banking tests had been less comprehensive and failed to identify major problems. This examination was also seen as a test of the credibility of the European Central Bank, led by Mario Draghi. The results appeared to be rigorous enough, finding that 13 banks failed the test and that the region's lenders needed $31 billion to bolster their financial footing. Poring over the numbers, banking specialists said that Europe's regulators had done a relatively competent job. While no large banks failed, the tests did not appear to be a whitewash either, they said. As a result, the tests may have instilled some confidence in financial giants that dominate Europe's economy, which could then help jump-start the lending that is needed to reduce the region's chronically high unemployment.
周日，关于欧洲银行是否有能力抵御危机的测试结果终于出炉。而大约五年前，美国就曾要求本国银行进行类似的测试。欧洲银行业早前接受的测试不如此次全面，未能发现一些重大的问题。此次测试也被认为是在考验马里奥·德拉吉(Mario Draghi)领导的欧洲央行的可信度。测试结果似乎足够严密：有13家银行未通过测试，为了在财务上站稳脚跟，该地区的银行需要补充310亿美元资金。研究了相关数字的银行业专家说，欧洲的监管机构的工作还算比较称职。他们说，尽管没有大型银行未通过测试，但测试中似乎也没有掩盖问题。因此，测试结果可能已经为主导着欧洲经济的金融巨头注入了一些信心，进而可能会推动银行放贷，而这对于降低该地区长期居高不下的失业率十分必要。
"They can be helpful in bringing stability to the European system and also therefore to lending," said Michael S. Barr, who was an assistant secretary at the United States Treasury Department during the first American tests in 2009.
“测试结果有助于为欧洲的银行体系，以及信贷市场带来稳定，”2009年美国首次开展测试时，在美国财政部担任助理部长的迈克尔·S·巴尔(Michael S. Barr)说。
An upswing in lending may not be long coming in Europe, according to some analysts and investors.
一些分析师和投资者说，过不了多久，欧洲银行的贷款就会出现增长。

"When nonperforming loans are rising and eroding capital you are unlikely to lend more," said Atul Lele, chief investment officer at Deltec International. "And when banks are better capitalized, there is more appetite to lend."
“当不良贷款不断增长并侵蚀资本时，不可能发放更多贷款，”Deltec International的首席投资官阿图尔·莱勒(Atul Lele)说。“只有当银行资本更充裕时，放贷的积极性才会更高。”
Stress tests are used by banking regulators around the world as a systematic and public way to force banks into shape. In doing so, they focus on capital ratios, which measure how much a bank finances its operations with its own cash flows and shareholder funds. The more capital a bank has, the less it relies on borrowed money, a flighty source of funding that can evaporate in a crisis.
世界各地的银行监管业机构都会使用压力测试，作为一种系统和公开的方法，来促使银行保持良好的状况。压力测试主要关注银行的资本充足率，这个指标衡量的是一家银行有多少自有现金流和股东资金来支持运营。一家银行的资本越多，对于负债的依赖程度就越小。负债是一种不可靠的资金来源，在危机爆发时可能会迅速蒸发。
In the stress tests, the authorities and the banks guess the amount of losses the banks would suffer on loans and securities in dire economic and financial situations. They then calculate how much capital the bank would have left after bearing the losses. If the capital falls below a certain threshold at a bank, it fails the test — and has to take remedial actions quickly. Monte dei Paschi di Siena of Italy, the world's oldest bank, met that fate, for instance. It had to find about $2.7 billion of capital.
在压力测试中，监管机构和银行会评估，在糟糕的经济和金融环境下，银行会因为发放的贷款和投资的债券，蒙受多少损失。然后，它们会计算银行的剩余资本。如果银行的剩余资本没有达到一个特定的门槛，就是没有通过测试——这意味着它必须要尽快采取补救措施。例如，世界上最古老的银行、意大利的西雅那银行(Monte dei Paschi di Siena)就面临着这样的命运，它必须筹措大约27亿美元的资本。
The big hope is that the healthier banks will now lend more to corporations in Europe. Since the financial crisis of 2008, bank loans to companies have fallen by $690 billion, or 11 percent, according to data from the European Central Bank. Partly offsetting that decline, European companies have increased their borrowing through bonds by $545 billion over that period, according to central bank data. Even so, over that period American banks ended up increasing lending to companies. After a decline, loans to corporations grew $203 billion, or 13 percent, all while corporate bond issuance was booming.
较为健康的银行被寄予厚望，人们期待它们现在能给欧洲的企业提供更多贷款。欧洲央行的数据显示，自2008年的金融危机以来，面向企业的银行贷款已经减少了6900亿美元，降幅达11%。欧洲央行的数据还显示，欧洲企业同期通过发行债券借来的资金增加了5450亿美元，在一定程度上填补了银行贷款的减少。即便如此，同一时期美国银行面向企业的贷款最终实现了增长。在经历一段时间的下滑后，企业贷款增加了2030亿美元，增幅达13%，而与此同时，企业债券发行也很繁荣。
Still, Mr. Barr recalls that the uptick in the United States took a while to occur. "There was not an immediate surge of new lending in 2009," he said, "It took a significant period of time, additional fiscal stimulus and additional government programs to revive lending."
然而，巴尔回忆称，美国的回升花了一段时间。“2009年并非立即就出现了新贷款的激增，”他说。“用了相当一段时间，以及额外的财政刺激和政府计划，信贷才开始复苏。”
The American stress tests may have worked because they took place at a time when the government was doing so much else. At the time, the Federal Reserve's bond buying program was injecting trillions of dollars into the banking system and the wider economy. The European Central Bank has similar stimulus programs in place, but economists mostly doubt that they will have the same impact as the Fed's.
美国的压力测试之所以起了作用，或许是因为进行压力测试时，政府还采取了很多其他措施。当时，美联储(Federal Reserve)的债券购买计划正在向银行体系和整体经济，注入数以万亿美元计的资金。欧洲央行也实施了类似的刺激计划，但经济学家大多怀疑，它能否发挥和美联储的计划相同的效果。
But the American stress tests may also have been better designed. In 2009, the United States regulators structured the stress tests in such a way that banks could not meet required capital ratios by cutting their lending or holdings of securities, actions that can damage the economy. Instead, the capital increases had to come from measures like issuing new shares to investors. "This was an additional signal of market confidence," Mr. Barr said.
但或许美国的压力测试设计得也更好。2009年，美国监管机构筹划压力测试时，使银行无法通过削减贷款或减持证券，来达到要求的资本充足率。这些行为可能会损害经济。当时扩充资本只能通过向投资者增发新股等手段。“这是另一个显示市场信心的信号，”巴尔说。
Yves Mersch, a member of the European Central Bank's board, said last week that the region's banks, anticipating the stress tests, had bolstered their balance sheets to the tune of $260 billion. But only 40 percent of that sum came from issuing equity and retaining earnings, the purest forms of capital that investors trust most.
欧洲央行执行委员会成员伊夫·默施(Yves Mersch)上周表示，欧洲的银行为了迎接压力测试，已经让各自的资产负债表增加到了2600亿美元。但其中仅40%来自发行股票和留存收益，这是两种最纯粹的资本形式，最受投资者信赖。
The stress tests have paved the way for the European Central Bank to assume full authority over the Continent's banks. Like the Federal Reserve in the United States, it may choose to gradually stiffen the tests to increase the chances that they appear credible. One way to do that would be to determine whether the banks could meet a clearer measure of their capital called the leverage ratio. This yardstick, which is less vulnerable to manipulation, is included in American tests.
压力测试已经为欧洲央行全权监管欧洲大陆的银行铺平了道路。和美国的美联储一样，欧洲央行可能会选择逐步提高测试的严格程度，从而加大测试结果可信的概率。做到这一点的一个办法是，检验银行是否能满足一个更清楚的标准。这个衡量银行资本的指标叫做杠杆率，不那么容易受到操纵。美国的测试中就包括这一指标。
But applying the leverage ratio may reveal a yawning hole at European banks, according to an analysis by Sascha Steffen, an associate professor at ESMT European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, and Viral V. Acharya, a professor of economics at New York University. They first assumed European banks had to write off all the nonperforming loans that are not covered by reserves. Then they calculated how much equity capital the banks would then need so that their equity capital equaled 4 percent of total assets. In that situation, the banks in the sample would have a theoretical capital shortfall of nearly $350 billion.
但柏林的欧洲管理技术学院(European School of Management and Technology)副教授萨沙·斯特芬(Sascha Steffen)和纽约大学(New York University)经济学教授维拉尔·V·阿查里雅(Viral V. Acharya)合作撰写的一份分析报告显示，使用杠杆率可能就会暴露欧洲银行存在的一个大缺口。他们首先假定欧洲的银行被迫减记了准备金未覆盖的所有不良贷款。然后，他们计算了银行需要多少股权资本，才能使股权资本满足总资产的4%。在这种情形下，采样的银行理论上有近3500亿美元的资本缺口。
"If solvency is not taken care of, there might still be problems," Mr. Steffen said.
“如果不重视偿付能力，仍然会出现问题，”斯特芬说。